Gratitude
Time goes by so quickly, and one season merges into the next. It happens that in anticipating and getting ready for Christmas, we can almost crowd out Thanksgiving Day. It is very important that we do not leap-frog over Thanksgiving.
“Gratitude,” said Martin Luther, “is the basic Christian attitude.”
When G. K. Chesterton wrote his autobiography close to the end of his long and useful life, he challenged himself to define in one simple sentence the most important lesson he had learned. He concluded that the critical thing in life was whether he took things for granted or received them with gratitude.
Gratitude always works. We can do our best only when we have thankful hearts.
The ungrateful have never done lovely things, but those who are grateful add beauty to the world.
Thanksgiving Day was born in the cradle of adversity. It was on August 20, 1620, that our Pilgrim fathers and mothers began their hazardous journey from foreign shores. In a time when travel has become so commonplace, it is difficult for us to imagine the discomforts of two months on the tiny, storm-tossed Mayflower.
They arrived when the autumn colors were already on the trees. Ahead of them was a winter in which nearly half of them would die from the rigors of climate and the ravages of disease. When spring finally came, the captain of the returning Mayflower offered free passage to any one who wished to return, but not a single person sought passage.
These hardy folks had faith that out of their struggles and hardships would come a better world, so in the fall of 1621 a day of feasting was declared.
True thanksgiving has never depended on outward circumstance. The Apostle Paul lived a hounded life, but his letters are punctuated by great praise. In Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians he wrote, “In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Jesus Christ concerning you.”
Paul did not say we should be thankful for everything. We would be less than sane if we glorified illnesses, accidents, privations, and death. No, Paul did not say for everything, but in everything- that is, in every circumstance, maintain a thankful spirit.
We are not always free to choose what will happen to us, but we are free to choose what our response will be, and we have at least two alternatives. We can respond angrily with resentment, “Why did this have to happen?” Or we can sift through what has happened and say, “What can we find here to be thankful for?” Our attitude determines whether we are victim or victor.
It is the grace of gratitude that gradually overtakes and overcomes grief. When my first wife died in 1994, I knew anger and despair. But with time, I came to understand, that she was a gift to our whole family, from God. And I can testify that this is the only way down from the Mountain of Loss. I do not mean to say that such a perspective makes things easy, for it does not. But at least it makes things bearable when I remember that Rita was a gift, pure and simple, someone I neither earned nor deserved nor had a right to. And when I remember that the appropriate response to a gift, even when it is taken away, is gratitude, then I am better able to thank God that I was ever given her in the first place.
An old Gospel song encourages us to “count your many blessings; Name them one by one; and it will surprise you what the Lord has done.” I’m sure it is not a great hymn. But I’m equally sure it is sound philosophy for the living of each day. When we take time to count our many blessings, we are wonderfully surprised to see how many blessing we all actually have. Give Thanks, with a grateful heart!
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Pastor Tom Drewer